More than 5,000 previously untested rape kits submitted to Ohio DNA analysis program

COLUMBUS — Attorney General Mike DeWine says Ohio’s crime lab has received more than 5,000 previously untested rape kits as it searches for DNA matches that could help solve reported sexual assaults.

Testing has been completed on more than 2,500 of those rape kits, leading to 837 DNA matches in a criminal database.

DeWine says forensic scientists with the state lab had received 5,215 previously untested kits from 111 law enforcement agencies in Ohio as of the beginning of the new year.

DeWine announced the testing initiative in December 2011. The attorney general has offered free DNA testing to any law enforcement agency with untested rape kits in which a crime was believed to have been committed. Many of the kits submitted for testing are between 10 and 20 years old.